


a different kind of intimacy

by ivelostmyspectacles



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Drunken Kissing, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Gentleness, M/M, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22067506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/ivelostmyspectacles
Summary: Jaskier crashes against his chest, and splutters, and laughs. Heisone of those drunks.“Geralt!”“Uh huh.”“You’reterrible!”“Yeah. I’m horrendous. Go back to bed.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 65
Kudos: 1786





	a different kind of intimacy

Jaskier can’t hold his liquor.

It’s almost _laughable,_ how he thinks he can keep up with them. Geralt, a witcher, and their client, someone twice the bard’s size. Geralt’s about to have his hand forced, willing to take the tankard directly out of Jaskier’s hands and drink it himself but Jaskier does him the favor of staggering back from the latrine and falling asleep with his head on the table before the drinking games can continue.

“What’s this one’s story, then?”

Geralt shrugs. He pours another drink for the client, and says, “he’s just a bard.”

“Can’t imagine a _witcher_ is eager to share his hard-earned coin with _just a bard.”_

“Ha. No.”

“So, not much money to be having in adventuring with a witcher. Thus, what’s his story.”

“He’s an idiot?” Geralt guesses, and it gets a grin in response. Good. Paid bounty or not, he isn’t sanguine in sharing details of his life with a stranger. Exposing information like that set you up for failure, and manipulation, and Geralt trusted no one.

“That’s true,” the client agrees, laughing, “but, no, I think, you, witcher, have made friends with this bard.”

Therein lay the problem, didn’t it. Geralt huffs into his liquor, and rolls his eyes. “Friends get you nowhere.”

“And yet, here you are.”

 _Here we are._

He frowns at Jaskier across the table, and decides he isn’t drunk enough himself.

  
  


“Jaskier.”

He’s even more intolerable when he’s half awake and completely drunk. Geralt holds onto him best he can, trying to coax the man’s clumsy fucking feet back to their room, but the world’s swaying a little and the venom from the earlier fight hasn’t entirely worn off himself yet. So. It’s a struggle.

Jaskier fights every step of the way. “No, no, nooo, I wanna go back down. I have– I was having a _lovely_ chat with the barmaid. She was bent over the bar.”

“In your dreams,” Geralt retorts. He urges him another step forward, holds onto his arm to keep him upright. “You’ve been asleep the past hour and a half.”

“No, it was _real,”_ Jaskier protests, and wobbles.

“As real as your ballads.” It takes one tiny shove and Jaskier all but falls onto the bed. “Go back to sleep, bard. Hate yourself in the morning.”

“I could never hate myself,” Jaskier says, exclaims so loud it makes Geralt’s ears ring. He’s going to hit him. He’s going to do it, next time. “I _love_ myself, G’alt. You should love yourself, too.”

“Yeah, somebody’s got to.” He eases onto his own bed, and tries not to prickle over the uncomfortable state of the bed. Just one more night here, and he has the coin to buy a better room in the next town over.

“So many people love you,” Jaskier says stubbornly, and it startles a laugh out of Geralt as he drops into the pillow. _“So_ many. Have you heard the _songs–”_

“Go to _sleep,_ Jaskier,” he interrupts, completely serious and still half amused. “Or I’m kicking you out to the hall.”

“Sleeping. Right. Yeah. _Good,”_ Jaskier agrees, and quiets down.

Sleep doesn’t come. Unsurprising, all told, but the satisfaction of the alcohol dips quickly as he lays, meditating in the silence of the room. Inhale and exhale. The regularity of Jaskier’s breathing across the room, slow and deep in sleep. The wind outside the window. Dwindling shouts from swindled games of gwent downstairs. It’s… nice. Calm, up until the moment Jaskier’s unconsciousness takes on a distinctive awareness again. _Awake,_ anyway, as Geralt hears his breathing change and then hears him shifting around in the bed. The retching starts soon thereafter, and Geralt sighs into his pillow.

“Jaskier,” he groans, and then props up on an elbow as he decides he’s never allowing the bard to drink to excess when he’s staying with him again. It’s too much trouble.

To his credit, he doesn’t vomit, although he retches himself into a series of hiccups, and then into laughter when he can’t quite shake them.

Geralt thinks he should have gone to sleep.

Jaskier staggers out of bed to the pitcher of water, and surprisingly doesn’t spill it as he pours himself a glass. He finishes off two of them, and then abruptly squints into the darkness at him. “Geralt.”

“Hm.”

“I’m still drunk.”

“Yes.”

“I’m _really_ still drunk.”

“No shit. Go back to bed.” 

“There’s three of you.”

Of course there were. He grumbles a curse under his breath, and steels himself for having to get out of bed to put Jaskier back into his. Although if he went staggering through the town drunk off his arse, he would deserve it. Geralt… guesses this is in his own good conscience he won’t allow that. Karma could feel free to pay him back, any day now.

“Back to bed,” he announces, grabbing Jaskier’s elbow. “Come on.”

“Don’t _push_ me!”

“I’m not pushing you. _This_ is pushing you.” He splays a hand against his shoulder. Shoves.

Jaskier predictably pitches forward, halfway to the ground when Geralt wrenches him back by that elbow he’s been hovering by. He crashes against his chest, and splutters, and laughs. He _is_ one of those drunks. _“Geralt!”_

“Uh huh.”

“You’re _terrible!”_

“Yeah. I’m horrendous. Go back to bed.”

“You–” Jaskier says, prodding his chest. “– need to learn how to be _nice._ You know, Geralt? Nice. It’s nice.” He’s leaning in far enough that the hand at Geralt’s chest is now, more or less, _probably_ keeping him from slumping outright against him again. “Be nice.”

“Nice isn’t fun. Go to _bed.”_

“You– trying to be all… _bad witcher,”_ Jaskier says, “with all your… devilish brooding and–” The hand at his chest stalls over a scar at his collarbone, and lingers. Jaskier’s distracted. Wonder of wonders. “And stupid scars.”

“I’ll try to avoid the brooding next time, then.”

“Yes. Do that.”

It’s funny. He’s got the laser focus of a drunk, staring at the scar of Geralt’s he can’t possibly even see in this darkness. Swaying a little. But his hand is steady as he settles it at Geralt’s jaw, and says, very serious, “we all know you’re a big softie at heart. You can’t fool us.”

“Oh, I've been found out,” he says, dry, and wonders what he's done to deserve this because this is the second time tonight he'd been called out for _caring_ for people. First from his client, and second from a fucking drunk Jaskier to boot. “Now–”

“You’re a romantic,” Jaskier announces, and then grins, slow and lazy, like he’s got a master plan figured here, as he leans to kiss the corner of Geralt’s mouth.

… alright, _that’s almost_ startling, all things considered, and Geralt should have seen it coming. But Jaskier is almost onto something. There’s almost something charming in its simplicity, an innocent contrast to the usual type of women he’s shared a bed with. Jaskier lingers, and breathes against Geralt’s skin, and clutches at the front of his sleep shirt in a kind of odd drag of time where it seems to stop altogether, and he’s as pliant as he has been the whole night.

“Like me,” Jaskier continues, and then Geralt feels Jaskier’s breath hitch in a tiny amused huff of air.

Gods give him strength. “What are you doing, bard.”

“I have… _nooo_ idea,” Jaskier says, and laughs, short and high and sharp. The buoyancy of alcohol fueled amusement, and his body quakes as he giggles with his hair tickling Geralt’s cheek.

“Jaskier.”

“Huh?”

“Would you get _off_ of me?”

“Yes, yes, I'm going.” He laughs some more, and then leans back with both hands on his chest. “Why?”

“Because I’m not your blushing barmaid.” He gets him at arm's length easily, then, and herds him back towards the bed. “And you are _stupid_ drunk.”

“I take offense to that.”

“Take a nap instead.” 

When he shoves him this time, Jaskier does go willingly back into bed. He struggles with the blanket and then gives up, curling halfway beneath it and halfway atop. “We should have the barmaid.”

“I’ll let you tell her that in the morning,” he says patiently, and heads back to his own. “Provided you can remember to.”

Jaskier laughs like he understands why it’s funny, and then he’s snoring softly not a full minute later.

He really was an idiot.

Geralt must be one, too, for putting up with him. But here they were.

_Here we are._

Unlike so many things, though, this is one Geralt doesn’t _really_ mind too much.

**Author's Note:**

> a lil kiss for new years! i don't even really ship them in necessarily a romantic sense, but this idea made me SOFT. plus the idea of unfazed-because-Jask-was-drunk Geralt and Yen-has-more-brain-cells-than-the-witcher talking later
> 
> Y: did you ever think, perhaps, the bard may have FEELINGS for you?  
> G: Yen. he was drunk  
> Y: Geralt, he's LITERALLY followed you to the ends of the earth. you don't do that for someone you don't love  
> G: ...... fuck
> 
> russian translation available here: <https://ficbook.net/readfic/8973630> Thank you, sicsmith!


End file.
